November Rains: 1500 tons per Imperial Acre!--Rainfall in Skye--An
old Gaelic Apologue--The Drover and his Minister--Grand Stag's
Head--Scott as a Poet--Mr. Gladstone and Scott--An old Lullaby
from the Gaelic.
With the exception of two, or at most three, tolerably fine days at
the beginning of the month, December [1870] has been hardly less
rainy and generally disagreeable than November itself, and this,
although in November a fall of 18 inches--1500 tons of rain water
to the imperial acre--was duly registered. A recent communication
from Skye went to show that in the matter of rainfall that island is
far ahead, not only of Lochaber, but of every other station in the
kingdom--a pluvial pre-eminence which we had really thought belonged
to ourselves, but which, claimed for Skye on the impartial authority
of the rain-gauge, we give up ungrudgingly, simply exclaiming with
Meliboeus in the Virgilian eclogue--
"Non equidem invideo, miror magis."
(In sooth I feel not envy, but surprise.)
"With such a rainfall as is claimed for Skye, one only wonders how it
is that the inhabitants of the island seem not to suffer a whit because
of it. As a rule, they are a robust and remarkably long-lived people;
and, what is even more surprising, they are exceedingly good-humoured
and cheerful--the pleasantest people in the world to meet with,
whether at home or abroad. There is an old Gaelic apologue current in
Lochaber, which may perhaps have some bearing on the point:--"It was
long, long ago that, in the grey dawn of an intensely cold January
morning, after a wild night of drift and snow, the heathcock of Ben
Nevis clapped his wings, and, in a loud, prolonged, interrogative crow,
addressed his first cousin by the father's side, the heathcock of Ben
Cruachan--'How do you feel yourself this morning, dear heathcock of
Cruachan?' 'So, so,' with a feeble attempt at wing-clapping, responded
the heathcock of Cruachan; 'So, so; miserable enough, believe me,
after such a night as last night was. And if I am thus miserable
down here, it only puzzles me to understand how you can at all endure
it, and live up there on Ben Nevis.' 'Thanks, my dear fellow,' with
a second vigorous clapping of his wings, quoth the Ben Nevis bird;
'Thanks, my dear fellow, for your kind and cousinly solicitude for my
welfare. Know this, however, that, bad as it doubtless is up here on
Ben Nevis, I am made to it.'" We can only suppose that our friends in
Skye bear this prodigious rainfall with such philosophic equanimity
and impunity because, like the heathcock of Ben Nevis, they are
"made to it." The first time we heard this apologue was many years
ago, in the cabin of one of the Messrs. Hutcheson's steamers. A
rubicund visaged drover--a fine-looking man, of burly frame and
Atlantean shoulders--had just swallowed quite half-a-tumblerful of
potent and unadulterated "Talisker" at a gulp rather than a draught,
when his parish clergyman, who happened to be reclining on a sofa
at the opposite side of the cabin, got up and expostulated with
his parishioner for drinking ardent spirits in such a way as that;
prophesying that unless he stopped it very quickly it would kill him,
and only wondering that it had not killed him long ago. The drover,
who was not aware until then that his minister was on board, and a
witness to his potations, respectfully took off his broad bonnet, and,
with a bow, begged to repeat the apologue, which he did, ore rotundo,
in the most beautiful Gaelic; the application being so manifestly apt
and pertinent to his particular case that we all burst out a laughing,
the venerable clergyman--now, alas, no more!--enjoying it as much as
any one that the tables had been so cleverly turned upon him. Fables
apart, however, the fact of the matter seems to be simply this, that
the humidity of the climate along our western sea-board, and amongst
the Hebrides, is in nowise inimical to robust health or longevity. It
is of course disagreeable enough at times, and frequently a sad
drawback on our agricultural prosperity; but a minute examination
of the vital statistics of the Western Highlands and Islands would
probably go far to show that our superabundance of rain is rather
favourable to health and long life than otherwise. Ach bi'dh sin
mar a chithear da, a beautiful Gaelic phrase literally. But be that
particular matter as it may seem to it,--what would most please us at
this moment would be a month or more of the good old-fashioned winters
of our boyhood, when everything was blanketed for weeks together
in soft and virgin snow, and the earth was at times so braced and
bound with frost that under the rapid tread and multitudinous rush
of all the village schoolboys at play, it rang again like a hollow
globe of iron! It is now, alas, dribble and drip, and splash, slop,
and slush from year's end to year's end.
We are indebted to our excellent friend Mr. Snowie, of Inverness,
for a very curious and valuable stag's head, admirably stuffed,
which reached us the other day by steamer. It is a splendid trophy,
a veritable Cabar-Féidh, which the Chief of the Mackenzies himself,
when the clan was at its proudest, might be glad to have to adorn the
entrance-hall of Brahan Castle. The antlers are of immense girth and
spread; one, except for the brow tine, what is called a cabar-slat;
the other with two tines, each of them almost big enough for an antler
of itself. We have seen many grand and curious heads in our day, both
cabar-slats and multicornute; but this, which is properly neither the
one nor the other, is, from its size and peculiar style of antlers,
a trophy to be singled out and admired in a collection of the best
heads of the kingdom. It faces us as we write from the opposite
wall of our study, and constantly reminds us of Scott's magnificent
description of the stag that led Fitzjames and his attendants such a
merry dance in the Lady of the Lake. We must be pardoned for quoting
a passage with which every one is familiar:--
"As Chief, who hears his warder call,
'To arms! the foemen storm the wall,'
The antler'd monarch of the waste
Sprang from his heathery couch in haste.
But, ere his fleet career he took,
The dew-drops from his flanks he shook;
Like crested leader proud and high,
Toss'd his beam'd frontlet to the sky;
A moment gazed adown the dale,
A moment snuff'd the tainted gale,
A moment listened to the cry,
That thicken'd as the chase drew nigh;
Then, as the foremost foes appeared,
With one brave bound the copse he clear'd
And, stretching forward free and far,
Sought the wild heaths of Uam-Var."
And yet some stupid people will ask if Scott was a poet! Even
Landseer never painted anything finer or truer to the life than that
word-painting of Scott's. Every one admits that Homer was a poet: well,
then, search the Iliad, point out anything better, or anything, entre
nous, quite as good, and when you have found it, please let us know,
and we promise to reperuse the passage, with every attention and care,
in the original of Homer himself, as well as in the translations of
Pope, Cowper, and Blackie; and if you are right and we are wrong,
we shall not hesitate to confess it, and humbly cry peccavi. Meantime
we shall continue steadfast in our belief that Scott is a poet, and
not only a poet, but a poet of the highest order; more "Homeric,"
too, than any other poet you can name, either of the present or
past century; and that Mr. Gladstone has had the good sense and
penetration to discover this, and the courage to avow it, is one,
and not the least, of many things which make us have a liking for
that distinguished statesman and scholar.
A lady, to whom we are indebted for numberless obligations of a like
nature, has sent us a copy of an old Gaelic lullaby or baby-song,
the composition of which must clearly be referred to the days when
cattle-lifting forays and spuilzies of every description were in high
fashion and favour with the gentlemen of the north--
"When tooming faulds, or sweeping of a glen,
Had still been held the deed of gallant men."
It is in many respects so curious that we venture on a translation
of it. Attached to it is a very pretty air, low and soft and subdued
as a lullaby air should be, though consisting but of a single part,
as was always the case with such compositions, unlike ordinary songs,
which generally had two parts, and admitted of endless variations,
according to the taste and vocal capabilities of the singer. It is
proper to state that our version is not intended to be sung to the
original air, for which the measure we have selected is unsuitable. Our
only object has been to convey to the English reader the general sense,
with something of the spirit and manner, of the original.
A Lullaby.
"Hush thee, my baby-boy, hush thee to sleep,
Soft in my bosom laid, why should'st thou weep;
Hush thee, my pretty babe, why should'st thou fear,
Well can thy father wield broadsword and spear.
"Lullaby, lullaby, hush thee to rest,
Snug in my arms as a bird in its nest;
Sweet be thy slumbers, boy, dreaming the while
A dream that shall dimple thy cheek with a smile.
"Helpless and weak as thou 'rt now on my knee,
My eaglet shall yet spread his wings and be free--
Free on the mountain side, free in the glen,
Strong-handed, swift-footed, a man among men!
"Then shall my dalt' bring his muim' a good store
Of game from the mountain and fish from the shore;
Cattle, and sheep, and goats--graze where they may--
My dalta will find ere the dawn of the day.
"Thy father and uncles, with target and sword,
Will back each bold venture by ferry and ford;
From thy hand I shall yet drain a beaker of wine,
And the toast shall be--Health and the lowing of kine!
"Then rest thee, my foster-son, sleep and be still,
The first star of night twinkles bright on the hill;
My brave boy is sleeping--kind angels watch o'er him,
And safe to the light of the morning restore him.
Lullaby, lullaby, what should he fear,
Well can his father wield broadsword and spear!"
To the proper understanding of this curious composition, a few words
of comment and elucidation may be necessary. The lullaby must be
understood as sung by a foster-mother to her foster-son, the Gaelic
words from which the exigencies of verse oblige us to retain in our
paraphrase. In lulling her charge to sleep, the foster-mother fondly
anticipates the time when the boy on her knee shall have become a
full-grown and perfect man; her beau-ideal of a perfect man, observe,
being that, like the heroes of ancient song, he should be brawny
limbed, strong of hand, and swift of foot, able and willing at all
risks to seize and appropriate his neighbour's goods, especially his
cattle, whenever necessity--an empty larder--or honour urged him to the
adventure. The coolness with which the old lady commits her foster-son
to the immediate care and guardianship of the heavenly powers, in
the self-same breath in which she hopes and believes that he will,
when he becomes a man, prove an active and expert thief--a stealer of
beeves from the pastures of neighbouring tribes, in utter defiance of
the decalogue--is ludicrous in the extreme. To understand it aright,
we must recollect that in former times it was accounted not only lawful
but honourable among hostile tribes to commit depredations on one
another; and as hostility among the clans was the rule rather than the
exception, every species of depredation was practised,--cattle-lifting
raids, however, being accounted the most honourable of all, and in
the conduct of which the best gentlemen of the clan might without
a blush take an active part. The "lowing of kine," geùmnaich bhà,
occurring in this lullaby, was an old toast of the cattle-lifting
times, that the late Dr. Macfarlane of Arrochar told us, he himself had
often heard when a young man at baptismal feasts and bridals on Loch
Lomond side. The secret of it is this: The geùmnaich, or "lowing,"
implied that the cattle were strangers to the glen, whilst those
that belonged to the glen itself, and were the bona fide property of
the clan, if such there were, were quiet and staid and well-behaved,
as decent cattle should be. The cattle "stolen or strayed," as the
advertisements have it, "lowed," and were troublesome; while those
born and bred in the glen were content to graze in peace, and to "low"
only when they deemed it absolutely necessary. "The lowing of kine,"
therefore, was a toast that meant neither more nor less than success
to the cattle-lifting trade! As ancient Pistol says--
"'Convey,' the wise it call. 'Steal!' foh, a fico for the phrase."